Double-life

For months now, I have battled over whether or not to make this blog public, i.e. putting a link to it on my profiles, etc... I have battled because I bare all of who I am on this page and mostly because I talk so openly about my relationship with God. There is this part of me that doesn't want to offend anyone by saying something that non-believers (if they even read this) wouldn't necessarily understand, then they think I am weird and worse, are turned off to God. Then there is this part of me that thinks "this is who I really am". All of the thoughts, all of the words, they are mine and if people think I am weird then who cares. When I was in California, I truly felt like I was living a double life. There was my outer/work life, then my inner/Christian life. I really struggled letting the inner life out in front of the people I worked with. Everyone knows I am a Christian, but few of them knew that every breath I take and every thought I have revolves around Him. It is tiring and agonizing because I don't feel freedom and people don't get to see who I really am.

I started reading The Sacred Romance for about the fifth time yesterday. I couldn't ever get into it, but it was different this time. I wanted to share just a bit from the first chapter that really spoke to me:

"On the outside, there is the external story of our lives. This is the life everyone sees, our life of work, play and church, of family and friends, paying bills and growing older. Our external story is where we carve out the identity most others know. It is the place where we have learned to label each other in a way that implies we have reached our final destination. Bob is an accountant, Mary works for the government, Ted is an attorney... Here, busyness substitutes for meaning, efficiency substitutes for creativity and functional relationships substitute for love. In the outer life, we live from ought., rather than from desire...

The inner life, the story of our heart, is the life of the deep places within us, our passions and dreams, our fears and our deepest wounds. It is the unseen life, the mystery within. It cannot be managed like a corporation. The heart does not respond to principles and programs; it seeks not efficiency, but passion. Art, poetry, beauty, mystery, ecstasy: These are what rouse the heart. Indeed, they are the language that must be spoken if one wishes to communicate with the heart. It is why Jesus so often taught and related to people by telling stories and asking questions. His desire was not just to engage their intellects, but to capture their hearts"

I really loved this because I know that I have really lived my "Christian" life so bare and out in the open for those that are Christians, but for those that are not, I feel like there is this huge part of me that they are missing. And as I was sitting with my thoughts last week, I heard this really deep voice that said "Just let people see who you are" and there it was... My inner life coming face to face with the outer giving it permission to be who it really is.

I want people to know who I really am (mistakes and all), and feeling like I had to hide the very words that make me who I am was just not working for me anymore. So this blog is no longer hiding.